March 9, 2018

Image credit: Luke Naylor Perrott

Evie Aspinall has been elected as CUSU President with a final margin of over 219 votes, beating their closest rival Siyang Wei in the second round of voting, after Connor MacDonald was eliminated after the first round.

In the first round of voting, Wei was in the lead with 1657 votes, followed by 1433 for Aspinall and 1047 for MacDonald.. As none of the candidates reached quorum after the first round, MacDonald and RON were eliminated. In the second round, Wei received 1804 votes to Aspinall's 2023 votes.

Aspinall told The Cambridge Student after hearing of her victory: "I am in shock. Thank you so much to Pembroke".

Aspinall has been elected on a platform where she promised she would be a President who “listens to and engages the student community”. Their manifesto focuses on making CUSU more visible, through opening up the possibility of CUSU ents, reducing inequality between colleges, and training student-facing staff to better support students.

In an unexpected turn of events, the new Graduate Union President was not announced, with the Elections Committee releasing a statetement, saying that a disciplinary invetsigation was in progress in relation to at least one candidate.

There was success, however, for those running for sabbatical positions.

In a hotly-contested race for the position of Access and Funding Officer, Shadab Ahmed pipped opponent Rhiannon Melliar-Smith to the post. On the second round of voting, Melliar-Smith received 1577 votes to Ahmed's 1691. The candidates clashed earlier this week after Ahmed accused his rival of defaming him at the Hustings event on Sunday. The Elections Committee threw out the accusation however in Melliar-Smith's favour.

Christine Pungong has been elected Welfare and Rights Officer-Elect with 1393 votes. Her rival, Walinase Chinula, garned 1100 votes.

Matt Kite will become the next Education Officer after receiving 2729 votes to 523 votes for RON

In the elections where only self-defining students could cast their vote, Claire Sosienski-Smith successfully beat RON with 2085 votes to RON's 333, meaning she will become the next Women's Officer, and Emrys Travis will become the new Disabled Students' Officer with 1516 votes cast for them and 391 votes for RON.

Meanwhile, in the race for Unviersity Councillor, Marcel Llavero Pasquina claimed victory over his opponents George Breckinridge and Hugo Larose. After three rounds of voting, 1127 votes were cast for Llavero Pasquina, with 739 votes cast for the second place candidate, Larose. Breckinridge received 542 votes.

The Sabbatical Officers will begin their new roles in July 2018.

The results read out by the Elections Committee are provisional only, and will be confirmed by the Elections Committee in due course.